Guild Wars 2

I think the downlevelling system is one of the best things this game has done. Everywhere I go there’s still a reasonable challenge. You argue that it wouldn’t hinder lowbies, well I agree that one person twenty levels higher than the area wouldn’t hinder anyone’s play a significant amount, however, fifty or so people twenty levels higher running all their friends and guildies through every area would totally trivialise the content, not only for the lowbies but also for the higher people because it would be ZERO challenge.

The other thing is, work into levelling? I don’t know about you but I essentially accidently levelled to 80. Levels are by no means hard to get in this game and neither are they incredibly significant. When I was levelling, there were TWO areas where I was not overlevelled anyway; Queensdale when I started and Orr when I reached max level.

Nothing wrong with Guardian there, something definately wrong with the people you’re teaming with though

I talked to Jon Peters during one of the betas, he said Duelling will be post launch sometime, so that’s good!

I’m somewhat of a programmer and while I’ve never done anything MMO related, I can’t imagine this being unrealistic and too hard to code. Realistically, they already have different AI behaviours in the game and if you look at the GW1 Beyond stuff, there already is random behaviors or the equivalent (different bars for the same mobs) implemented there. All it would really be is modularising the behaviour and assigning each foe one of them when they are created. Who knows, maybe their behavior is already modularised. It’s a rediculously tiny calculation compared to things like path finding. I know I may be trivialising a few things but it really isn’t outside the realms of a reasonable possibility.
In any case, I really don’t think it’s an unreasonable idea, whether or not ArenaNet implement it, however, is entirely up to them and it’s their game, I’ll like the game with or without this feature.

Some people enjoy open world pvp. Most people however, will just form massive gank squads and kill everyone else in sight.
Just do WvW it’s about the same thing, you want to level whilst in danger? Make a level 1 and do WvW.

I’m pretty sure Line of Warding for staff is also a light combo field too, although like others, isn’t listed for some reason.
I understand they don’t seem to like magical projectile finishers but as someone said earlier, there already IS at least one magical projectile finisher. So I’m pretty sure they just didn’t want us spamming easy condition removal by ourselves but at least something would be nice.
I would also really like Zealot’s Defense to at least count as REAL blocks, trait-wise, against projectiles.

Well Schakal, sadly it is most of the finishers we have. We also have Shield of Wrath which does well enough. Protector’s Strike hardly counts as a finisher if you ask me as it only combos when you don’t block with it, even though you still spin around?!
I actually really like the idea of Judge’s being a blast finisher or at least a leap finisher if Flashing Blade qualifies for leap too. Makes sense if you ask me. Smite Conditions as a blast?! That’s hella cool! I would almost take that over Purging Flames.

If elementalists get magic projectile finishers, I want them too! It’s not like we’ll have overpowered range damage at all..

I often use hammer. It doesn’t solve the zero projectiles problem however.

Yeah a little, I’d like Flashing Blade to be a leap finisher, Protector’s Strike to always be a whirl finisher. Other than those two, throwing in logical projectile finishers would make me happy as beans.

I would argue that applying boons and various other passive-ish team support skills whilst dealing a decent amount of damage is more in line with what a Guardian’s strength is, rather than just limiting it to one virtue, which, in a team situation is always on cooldown anyway.
Sword and scepter both offer zero boons, zero symbols/fields and zero combo finishers. If you’re using ANY weapon appropriately (especially in a PVE situation), you’ll be proccing the Justice passive as much, if not more than sword anyway, so while the hits from sword 1 add up to five, the hits from a good mace/greatsword/hammer/staff chain of skills burns like crazy anyway. You can get Wave of Wrath to proc Justice EVERY hit if you’re hitting five foes. So I would say that every weapon already plays towards Justice, yet sword and scepter don’t seem to offer a whole lot else, other than ok damage.
I really want to use these two weapons, in fact, before release I had it set in my mind that I would mainly use sword+shield/scepter+shield but I just can’t bring myself to use them over weapons that offer so much more.

None of them count as projectile finishers. I orginally thought Bow of Truth did but I just tested it out a few times and didn’t see any combos. In any case, if it does count, it’s only one skill with projectile finishers on it and it has more downtime than uptime.
I’m not saying all fourteen should be finishers but a healthy dose of them would be nice

Sorry to double post, for some reason, people hate that.
Anyway, I just looked up all the other professions that use scepter and looked through their skills, all the non-Guardian professions that use scepter’s skills all really played towards a strength of that profession. Eg:- Mesmers go clone crazy with a healthy dose of confusion, Elementalists basically have a set of skills that really reflect each attunement as well as having various combo fields and finishers and Necros have some really good condition based skills.
Guardians? Are we supposed to specialise in swarms of small packets of damage with easy to dodge projectiles that aren’t even finishers? The only good skill we have on scepter is Chains of Light and I wouldn’t say it necessarily plays towards a strength of our profession, unless you count only being really viable in melee range a strength, which, ironically, is not what the scepter is about anyway!
I can go on for far too long about swords and scepters….

If you ask me, Flashing Blade on sword needs to be a leap finisher and Protector’s Strike on mace needs to be a whirl finisher EVEN when it blocks.
I also agree that Zealot’s Defense would be awesome if it was a 20% projectile finisher. As I’ve said before, I’d love it to hit foes in a line but I think that probably won’t happen

Sairenkao.6485:

Also, if scepter gets a symbol, it’s only fair that sword gets one, too…right..? ;x

If sword gets a symbol I might even start using it again! :O
…once they make Zealot’s Defense hit foes in a line and/or be projectile finishers..
What’s that? Derailing?
SCEPTER SCEPTER SCEPTER!! Tell us what you think about scepter!

This is why I think Smite needs to be a symbol, it even uses the same graphic style as a symbol. If they don’t want it to be too small by default, they could just make it a combo field at least! (Or make symbols bigger! I find I need to take Writ of Exaltation for symbols to be useful anyway)

Hey now Virtue of Mercy would be a really interesting addition Knighthonor! I like it. Not sure how good it is balance-wise but I believe it certainly fits in with the Guardian ethos.

I found Altruistic Healing rediculously useful. I run a symbols based support/tank build and in a lot of situations I would imagine Altruistic Healing actually does more overall healing over time than Monk’s Focus. Using Empower in the middle of a group in WvW with Altruistic Healing is insane. Every tick of a symbol that affects allies also heals you, ALL your shouts heal you, if you have 5 points in Virtues, ALL your virtues heal you (These situations are, of course, when you have allies around). Popping Resolve in the middle of a zerg is like, half my health bar.
If you’re more of a soloer, Monk’s Focus might make more sense, however, if you’re using Empowering Might with Altruistic Healing, you’re also turning crits into self heals!

While it’s a nice idea, I disagree. Thief already kinda does this but that’s because of the mechanics of how a thief’s weapon bar works with the third skill.
The reason I disagree is that firstly, it doesn’t make a tonne of sense, how could you make someone with 1h+barehand slightly less equivalent to say someone sword+shield? Well one way would be to give them less skills….
Another reason is that two handed weapons have larger stats to make up for the fact that one handed weapons allow you to hold two items; meaning if you decided to run around with only a single 1h weapon equipped you’re giving up about half the potential stats you could have with two one handers. They could implement code that buffs the stats of a single one hander if it was the only thing you had equipped but I feel that would just make the weapon overpowered and every one hander would essentially be two handers. You could also argue that the lack of stats would be the disadvantage of not having an offhand but I think it would be really hard to make 4 and 5 skills on a one hander appealing enough to forgo having an offhander.
Thirdly, if I can have a full weapon skill bar by holding a sword in my main hand, does that then mean I could have a full weapon skill bar by holding a focus in my offhand? It may sound silly but if they implemented main hand one hander full skill bars, people would then start complaining about not having that option available for offhand items (Imagine a full weapon bar for having only a shield equipped…).
All up, I like the idea but game mechanics wise, I don’t think it really works and is pretty much fine the way it is.

(Edit: fixed a typo)

The whole point of elite skills is that they’re kickass encounter changing abilities. If I could use one to win a fight in PvP or PvE, then quickly change it out inbetween fights to one that isn’t on cooldown, I could use six elite skills in the space of a couple of minutes. I think that would be completely unbalanced as it means everyone is essentially running around with six or so elite skills on their bar. I say, wait a few seconds.

Abyss BROWN?!!? Are you kidding me? You must be playing with gamma up or something, it’s so black on mine that I felt normal Black was so much more realistic, and it wasn’t grey either. I’m so confused about how people have a problem with this.

I’ve said it before but I really find the one hand sword on Guardian really lackluster when compared to other Guardian weapons and even other professions that use sword. The shield idea I have is mainly to address the issue people have with the fact that Guardian shield skills don’t block. I’m actually fine with the shield as is.

Let me make it clear, I am not dissing anyone that uses sword and I know you may like sword how it is but I really don’t. I am also quite aware of how it works, you needn’t make any, ‘but if you do this, this other thing will happen!’ replies.

My suggestions are mainly to improve synergy with other people but also just to make it more appealing. I love using swords but I really can’t on my Guardian when the other options are so much better. I’m aware that sword gives the option of offhands, but really, I still don’t think that compares to say the greatsword or hammer.

Sword
- Make SOMETHING happen in the 1 skill chain somewhere, a boon preferably. I know the damage is good and I know Virtue of Justice procs every chain but there’s nothing interesting in this chain at all. In most cases, any other weapon will proc Justice almost as much, especially against multiple foes whereas sword 1’s first two chain skills are usually the only ones that hit multiple foes anyway.
- I like teleports but not only is the damage on Flashing Blade rediculously small, the teleport really NEEDS to be a leap finisher. This would add just a little more fun and synergy with other players without greatly changing the skill, it would also indirectly buff the damage in most situations. Before you say it’s fine where it is, Greatsword’s Leap of Faith ALSO does AoE blind, is a leap finisher AND does good damage, it’s no teleport but at it still closes gaps at about the same range.
- Zealot’s Defense got me excited the first time I saw it. The damage on it is GREAT but I have a few problems with it, it doesn’t actually block projectiles, by that I mean, any traits I have that trigger on block DON’T trigger on the projectiles it blocks. It also shoots out projectiles, that’s great, but I really think they need to be 20% projectile finishers, so many other professions are dripping in projectile finishers, we get one (Bow of Truth). Thirdly, I don’t want to over power the sword but it really looks like Zealot’s Defense’s projectiles would hit foes in a line, much akin to Necromancer’s staff 1 skill. It would be so useful if this was the case, although a slight lowering of the damage it does might be in order, up to your discretion.
- I really don’t want to overpower Zealot’s Defense but another option could be to make the shield that Zealot’s Defense creates a combo field. This does raise the issue, if the projectiles were 20% projectile finishers (please!) that a single skill would combo off itself but I’m sure there are ways around it, such as not allowing it to combo itself but work fine on other fields. Could be too much I dunno. IT LOOKS LIKE A COMBO FIELD! XD

Shield
I like shield to be honest, but it is true that we get so many ‘on block’ traits yet not too many ways to reliably block. My suggestion for shield is this:
- Change the functionality of Shield of Judgement a little so that it behaves in a similar manner to Protector’s Strike, you block the next attack (or possibly just block for 2 seconds) and on block (or after 2 seconds), use the current behavior of Shield of Judgement.
- While blocking, a chain skill to simply activate the on block behaviour of it would be nice too (similar to the warrior’s mace block) because it would mostly retain it’s current use if you were more interested in the buff and damage it gave rather than blocking something.

Thanks for reading!

I know how the weapons work and I’m aware they aren’t necessarily bad, I’m just saying they could be better. I’m also not saying they should behave like greatsword or staff, I’m saying it would nice if they could have their own fields and/or finishers like most weapons do.
Imagine how cool Flashing Blade would be if it was a leap finisher, teleport through Purging Flames and get yourself a Flame Aura as well as blinding them! Mesmer can teleport backwards and get a leap finish, surely we should be able to teleport forwards and get one too!
I seriously think these weapons need a buff, YES they are good but let’s look at greatsword with sword in mind:
- If I’m versing three or more enemies, which I do often, I’m proccing Justice every chain ANYWAY, kinda like sword, add to that all the extra might I get, plus it swings at about the same speed.
- I get a nice symbol, affected by all my nice symbol traits which also is a combo field and all the nice AoE damage that comes with it.
- Fattest damage skill also can be used to finish combo fields AND shoots projectiles, kinda like sword but without the ranged fake block and isn’t single target.
- Leap finisher that AoE blinds AND does pretty good damage, unlike sword. Sure it’s no teleport but the functionality is remarkably similar.
- ANOTHER finisher that has limited crowd control and again, ok damage for what it does.

Compared to that, the sword looks kinda useless. Yes you can use offhands with it, but how many offhands have combo fields? One, with a 40 second untraited cooldown. How many finishers can sword use on it? None because it has none. How many offhands have combo finishers? One, with a 45 second untraited cooldown.
While I’m at it, how many Guardian skills have some kind of projectile? I counted 14, how many are considered projectile finishers? I counted one, if Bow of Truth counts.
I’m not saying, ALL WEAPONS MUST HAVE COMBO FIELDS! I’m still comparing sword to the greatsword.
I’m not dissing people who like swords or scepters, if you like them, that’s totally fine!
In any case, I think I’m just repeating myself at this point and I’ll stop wasting people’s time. Thank you for reading

I often take the Consecrated Ground trait which allows consecrations to be ground targetted. I then use this to great effect by jumping on top of a keep/tower that’s under siege and drop a Wall of Reflection in front of the door.
Definately gives me a good idea of the people who don’t stop shooting’s DPS

Maybe there IS a five target cap on Line Warding!! :O I’ve never seen five people get stopped by it at the exact same instant! Similar to how area of effect skills only hit five things at once.

These are all very good points and I agree with most, if not, all of them.

My main problem however, judging by what people have said here, is that the sword requires traits to be most useful, while I’m not discounting the effectiveness of sword’s damage and how useful you can make the following weapons via traits, they CAN require absolutely NO traits to be a good synergy/support/damage. I’m talking mostly combo fields/symbols/finishers here.
Hammer needs no traits to be effective, staff needs no traits to be effective (some people would disagree here though), mace needs no traits to be effective, greatsword needs no traits to be effective, heck even shield. See where I’m going with this? I don’t NEED 30 points in any trait line for those weapons to synergise well.
The only weapons that lack this instant team combo effectiveness are swords, possibly scepters (if smite doesn’t count as a combo field, I forget if it is, the tooltip doesn’t say so) and I guess torches. You could argue that they’re all the one handed damage dealers so they shouldn’t HAVE finishers and fields. Why then do other professions get them? Because we can heal a lot? So can pretty much everyone else.

I know it’s not ALL about every single weapon having crazy synergies with other people and I’ve mentioned before that perhaps sword just isn’t for me, even though I really like the sword and shield look and feel.
Sword just still just feels lacking, I mean there are mesmer teleports that are leap finishers, why isn’t sword’s? There are plenty of projectiles that are not only projectile finishers but hit foes in a line, why doesn’t Guardian sword’s? This is why I mentioned earlier that I would like to know the developer’s design decisions behind the sword. Like is it deliberately a pretty much only single target damage weapon or did the skills just end up like that? etc etc

I’m not angry or having a go at anyone here by the way, I really like swords but I feel my playstyle is a little incompatible with them, I’m going to give it a go as my damage weapon swap, see how that turns out.

Shimond.2478:

Swords are great, the mistake here is considering them a support or party weapon. They’re just raw damage/murder, something this class does not have that much of otherwise (considering the theme).

I don’t agree with that, greatsword easily does the most damage, could be considered a raw damage dealer and yet it has a symbol; which can be used for all number of synergy and support related things via traits, plus THREE combo finishers.
What I was originally saying is that sword and scepter don’t have a lot of synergy/support options like other weapons do, even the big damage ones.

Resolve has saved me and my party many times. Just gotta use it at the right time. Doesn’t hurt to put five points in the Virtues line too.
The small amount it heals for really adds up though, if I trait for AoE resolve and gear for healing, it heals for like 120ish but when you think about it, in a small amout of time, say ten seconds, it’s already healed everyone around me for 1200 for free!
Using resolve is useful too, sure it doesn’t heal for any more than the dodge roll trait heals for, but it heal EVERYONE in about a 1200 range. I used it in WvW and my screen filled up with green numbers, not to mention they all received regeneration after that.
I agree that it could be a little stronger but there’s a fine line, any more powerful and people will be screaming to nerf it.

Hey that’s a cool idea, perhaps to keep Zealot’s Defense similar to its original intended design, it could be a sword smash into the ground (similar to Symbol of Faith with mace) that also sends out a magical projectile (or more) like it already does but leave a symbol on the ground. Granted that would slow it down a little (maybe) and it’s designed to be fast.
In any case, throwing suggestions around can be helpful. Maybe a dev will read it and think, ‘Hey not bad.’

Ezrael.6859:

Support your team through blinds and reflecting projectiles.

Or just killing the enemy.

That stands true. However sword doesn’t reflect projectiles, it fake blocks them, for a pretty short amout of time to be honest but I guess the recharge is nice. Most of the time I have Wall of Reflection running anyway, the amount of damage I’ve done with that is rediculous (I have them ground targetted, try dropping one in front of a keep/tower door from above ), that along with the shield, projectiles really aren’t a worry.
Blind and teleport is really nice, for a long time in all the betas it was one of my favourite skills. However, it usually requires pretty judicial timing, which I don’t have a problem with but I’ve found it more useful to have more constant team support in ways of healing and boons which allows them to stay alive and do the big damage.

As I said earlier, it may just be a case that sword is not for me I really like swords hahah!

I do like sword, don’t get me wrong I just feel it’s still lacking compared to other weapons. Once again, it could be I’m trying to use it in ways it’s not designed to be used.
I’m currently using mace+shield with a weapon swap of whatever suits the situation, usually greatsword, hammer or staff. I like having a damage swap for solo situations (although mace isn’t that bad if you get the big hits off), I would switch to sword for that (perhaps sword+torch) but even then I don’t think the damage would match that of the greatsword AND the greatsword has a symbol with finishers too. Still seems like a better option.

I find that, aside from pretty good single target damage, the sword is the LEAST ally friendly weapon. It’s a real shame because I LOVE SWORDS! XD I also really enjoy the philanthropic nature of the Guardian.
I really want to use a sword right, but there’s no combo fields, no symbols, no finishers and it applies no boons (scepter also applies no boons ). They’re the only above water weapons that don’t apply boons (I’m aware spear doesn’t apply boons but it at least has the equivalent of a field and does really decent AoE damage)
I love playing frontline support roles so Guardian pushes all my buttons, but I also like using swords and I’ve found the sword offers almost no synergy with other professions.
I’ve been using mace instead and I really like the support, ok damage and cross profession synergy that mace offers but there’s a part of me that is still sad that it’s not a sword. I know it’s purely a problem with aesthetics and I may just have to settle with not being able to have a sword. In any case I think the sword and scepter need some love.

Sword
- Does Sword Wave only hit one foe three times? The tooltip says otherwise.
- I like how Flashing Blade and Zealot’s Defense work but I still find it lacking compared to other weapons in terms of team support. Does the blocks from Zealot’s Defense count as REAL blocks? I don’t see the word, ‘block’ appear when I use it against ranged, in fact I don’t even know when it’s working and I tried out using the Defender’s Flame trait and didn’t notice any extra burns, I could just be blind though…
- Without changing any sword skills completely, Zealot’s Defense looks like a suitable candidate for a small combo field at least and/or perhaps making its projectiles hit foes in a line rather than being entirely single target. I would LOVE a symbol or something on sword but I see it would be difficult jimmy in although I’m not opposed to a re-work of the sword.

Scepter
- I think scepter is about as saddening as sword but at least it gets a combo field (I think, it’s not listed but I think I’ve combo-ed off it).
- I find smite is just WEIRD and I don’t think I like it, it looks like a symbol, but it isn’t. In fact, a symbol would be more reliable than how smite currently works since the damage seems to be randomly dispersed around the field whereas symbols damage the whole area albiet a little slower.
I understand that it may not be a symbol due to it being too small if it was, which would almost require having the Writ of Exultation trait to make it the size it is now. But if it WAS a symbol we could get all the nice little bonuses our traits offer symbols, healing, vulnerability etc, once again increasing team support/syngery.
- I needn’t bring up Orb of Wrath, I think we all know what’s wrong with that one.

Anyway, sorry for the wall, I just really think these weapons need some help. I would love to know what the design ideas behind these two weapons are. Maybe I’m just trying to use them in a way they weren’t designed to be used.

Just clearing something up. Getting a top player doesn’t actually mean you’re the TOP player. It just means you got the most points out of anyone in one of the many categories of points.
If I revived 1 person and nobody else revived anyone (it’s happened…) all of a sudden I’m the top player, but not for the whole game, just the top player in teammate revives.
Someone else might get top player for points captured or kills etc.
But to whoever was mentioned this before, I get what you meant.